Are powerful spouses more likely to cheat?

Why do people cheat on their spouses? Some say that men are naturally inclined to infidelity, and that women are not.

But the truth is more complex. As I argued in my last post, female promiscuity has been documented throughout the animal kingdom. Humans are no exception. And people may cheat for a variety of reasons.

What about power? Do people become more likely to cheat as they become more powerful at work? If so, that might explain why we hear so often about unfaithful males. If men cheat more often, maybe that’s because men tend to have more power.

That’s what Joris Lammers and colleagues were thinking. To test their idea, they conducted an anonymous internet survey on more than 1500 professional people in the Netherlands.

Participants were asked to describe their positions in the office power hierarchy, the amount of stress they experienced at work, and the degree to which their jobs interfered with their personal relationships.

They also answered questions about infidelity, questions like:

“Would you ever consider cheating on your partner?”

“How often have you been unfaithful to your partner?”

“How easy would it be for you to seduce someone?”

“If you had an extra-marital affair, what’s the likelihood that you’d get caught?”

…

When the researchers analyzed the answers, they found a pattern. Powerful people were more frequently guilty of infidelity. And gender didn’t matter.

Among powerful individuals, males and females were equally likely to cheat on their partners.

Why is power linked with infidelity? We might think it’s because high-powered people experience more marriage-busting pressure at work, or because powerful people think they’re less likely to get caught.

But in this study, the powerful people didn’t differ much from underlings in these respects. They reported only slightly more work stress, and they didn’t differ at all when it came to judging the risk of being discovered.

What really seemed to matter was a certain kind of confidence. People were more likely to cheat if they strongly agreed with statements like “I feel confident that it would be easy for me to seduce someone.”

And–not surprisingly–powerful people expressed more confidence in their sexual charms.

Can we conclude that power and sexual confidence makes people more inclined to cheat? Maybe not.

Perhaps there is a trait, call it X, that makes people both more promiscuous and more ambitious. Elevated testosterone might be such a trait. It’s linked with competitive behavior and sexual interest in both men and women.

That’s plausible, but there are hints that causation can work the other way. When zoologists manipulate animal dominance hierarchies—helping low-ranking males rise to the top—the former underlings start producing more testosterone.

And some unpublished experiments on humans suggest that you can make people more interested in attractive strangers by making them feel more powerful. If future research confirms these findings, we’ll have a stronger case for the “power encourages people to stray” hypothesis.

Meanwhile, it sounds very plausible. Power corrupts, right? And as Henry Kissinger observed, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

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The paper by Lammers et al., tentatively entitled, Power Increases Infidelity among Men and Women, is scheduled to appear in the journal Psychological Science. My comments are based on a pre-print.

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It also might have something to do with the availability of potential partners to someone who is powerful. People who are powerful are usually seen as more attractive to the opposite sex. Therefore, there are more potential partners out there. As power increases, so does the number of potential partners, the physical attractiveness of those partners, and the strength at which those potential partners throw themselves at the powerful person.

To compound this, power usually comes with wealth, and wealth is well known to up someone’s attractiveness. Do any of the studies you mention separate powerfulness at the office and wealth of the individual?

I think Jammers et al are assuming that power is the sum of a person’s wealth and status (which seems a reasonable operational definition for modern Dutch people). They didn’t measure wealth independently.

It does seem that having people throw themselves at you would make you feel more confident. I’ve often wondered if some of the politicians we hear about–who seem to think very highly of their sexual attractiveness–have a skewed view because they are surrounded by a (select) group of adoring young women. The politician gets the impression that he is generally attractive, when in fact he might only attract a rather narrow portion of the population–his “groupies.” You could make the same case for decrepit old rock stars. 😉

Beth

I suspect it’s two-fold.

One, powerful people, however power is defined within your particualr social arena, are attractive. They are the alphas. We are hard wired to want their DNA.

And two, I’ve always thought that in order to be willing to put in the time/energy/sacrifice to become powerful, you have to be at least a little narcissistic. Not to the point of having a personality disorder, but certainly there. I personally think my narcissism makes me a better litigator. Narcissism doesn’t make you less likely to think you’ll get caught so much as it makes you care less about getting caught.

I really like your point about caring less about getting caught. Recent history has provided us with many examples of powerful people getting caught doing very bad things–and showing surprise at the consequences. It seems they imagined they would be given preferential treatment–no doubt because they had been treated preferentially in the past.

frilady

This is exactly what happened to me!

My husband got a new job, we moved abroad, he got into a management position. Earlier he was just a worker with a high school diploma.
Before, when we both had same work status and salary, we struggled sometimes but always worked together to overcome any obstacles in our finances or marriage.
After moving and him getting more “power” things started to change. He was always complaining he was working so hard! That he needs time for himself! I caught him seeing another woman behind my back. And when I got pregnant he said I would have to choose between him and the baby (abortion). He left me when I was 6 months pregnant and now we are dealing with divorce papers.

So now I am alone with 4 kids.
He never would admit to adultery, even when I caught him out.
I have been in counseling and my minister told me some men in power think that they are entitled to reward themselves, and that common rules do not apply to them since they are “more” than others.
It does not help that we moved to an Asian country, where any “white” man is considered to be good catch.

I just console myself with that he is the loosing part, giving up 20 years of marriage and his family, to seek superficial gratification.

By the way I am not a needy, clingy wife that has let her self go…. I have my own career and can fully support myself financially, and I still hit the scales on the same weight that I was when we met 21 years ago.

He even said it straight out when I questioned his motives for divorce.
He said; he thought he deserved more… !
What can be more precious than a loving wife who stood by your side in rough and tough for 20 years and your 4 children?
A fling with a asian gold-digger, who think she hit a jackpot? She will soon discover he does not have that much money left, having to pay child support for 4 kids LOL

It is easy to get sarcastic, but really, it is a tragedy especially for all those children involved. But this is the story we read over and over again in the news. Tiger Woods, Arnold Swatchenegger, …..
These men have beautiful, loving, intelligent, supporting wives, precious children, successful careers. Still they want “more”, think they deserve “more”,
believe they are entitled to “more”.

And in most cases “more” is having sex with other women. In other cases “more” is acquiring money that not belong to them. And in every case “more” is that common moral rules do not apply.

Lucy522

GREAT post! I love these articles, and your ability to make it accessible to the average person! I am especially intrigued by your assessment of the cause/effect scenario. The information about manipulating dominance hierarchies was fascinating… it seems to dispute the commonly held perception that males cheat because they’re “hardwired” to be promiscuous. If some species of birds, rodents, and gibbons can be monogamous, we humans are certainly capable of it, if we choose to enter into it willingly!

Beth

@frilady, your post is interesting to me because I notice a similar trend among women, minus the cheating. I have seen so many cases of a wife advancing her education mid-marriage and feeling like she’s outgrown or moved past her husband. We see it so often, we refer to them as “master’s degree divorces.”

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